activism

Four months ago I went on a writing retreat at a cabin a few hours from my house. It was early August, the weather was hot and humid, there were thunderstorms. Hydrangeas bloomed outside the window and it stayed light way past my bedtime.

Today I’m wrapped in a blanket, sitting underneath a pile of more blankets, and the hydrangeas are dried on my mantle. Snow is piled on the rooftops and it will be dark soon, even though it’s only mid afternoon.

This is not news. The seasons change, life changes. Nothing is surprising about this. Even my blog has changed. (Did you notice? Long story short – I was out of my depth on my old platform technology-wise and so I switched to the convenience and ease of the WordPress.com format. I like it here. It’s pretty.)

There are other changes to note. My age changed (hello, fabulous 40!). My health changed a bit. I had a non-routine mammogram & ultrasound that were initially worrying, but everything was okay. Still that, plus my creaky knees, makes me aware of how my body is always changing (the extra 10 pounds I packed on this fall has certainly contributed to this awareness).

My writing life changed, too. I have several projects in mind and I want to do all of them now, which means I get paralyzed and I haven’t done any of them. I almost gave up on the blog a few months ago, not convinced I had much more to say, and wondering if freeing up the blog would free up more time to work on other projects. (Results are uncertain since I was still too paralyzed to write anything of note.)

And then there was the election and the world changed again, tilting on its privileged, white, entitled, anti-intellectual, racist, bigoted, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic axis.

Since then (and sometimes in one day alone), I’ve spiraled, I’ve cried, I’ve rallied, I’ve withdrawn, I’ve grieved and succumbed to fear. Above all, I’ve wondered what world I live in. And what world will my kids inherit?

In this ever-changing world, I return to writing. As I write, I catalog and document what I see. I organize my tumbling thoughts and I communicate those thoughts to the world. I expect I’ll be blogging more frequently. As a librarian and writer, it is my responsibility to call out attacks on freedom of speech and to decry fake news (and to help educate people on how to spot and combat fake news). As a member of a diverse family, it is my responsibility to stand up against injustices and to work for the wellbeing of all people. As a citizen, it is my responsibility to hold my government accountable and to work for a just world.